MENTAL patient s detained because they pose a risk to the public will be allowed to go on shopping trips alone in North Wales.

The details emerged last night into plans for a low-secure unit in Abergele.

Patients - some of them held because of court orders - will be able to qualify for leave visits, including shopping trips, to help their rehabilitation.

A psychiatric expert insisted patients would not be allowed to wander the streets until staff "get to know them".

And he said patients would only go out on their own "dependant on progress".

But opponents last night said the news confirmed their worst fears and would galvanise their campaign against the unit.

Details came to light as the company behind the plans appealed over a planning decision against the proposed unit at Gainsborough House, a former nursing home in St George's Road.

Conwy County Borough Council refused permission for Aspen Capital Group Ltd to build a three-metre high security fence around the home. A public inquiry will be held next week.

The company's proposals are explained in written evidence to be submitted at the inquiry by James A McDonald, a consultant forensic psychiatrist.

"The purpose of a low-secure unit is the admissions, treat-ment and rehabilitation of patients who, by virtue of their mental disorder, pose a risk to others, and the level of this risk is assessed as being appropriately managed within a low-secure environment," he says.

The ultimate aim, says Mr McDonald, is to rehabilitate people to the level where they no longer pose a risk to the community and can be safely discharged.

"Not all patients will attain this level of well-being, and their needs should be met in the least restrictive environment possible for the longer term," he says.

"Patients will only be admitted after assessment if the staff are confident that the service at Gainsborough House can meet the patients' needs in a way that does not compromise the safety of patients, staff or the local community."

He says patients would be allowed to step outside the unit only after staff got to know them.

"The aims of leave are to further the patient's rehabilitation back into the community, promote their daily living skills, independence and confidence, and to help them re-establish/ maintain ties with family and friends," he said.

"Leave visits will have a designated time frame and purpose. This may include visits to relatives or trips to the shop to buy foodstuff for a meal.

"Leave will be escorted by a member of staff initially and may then be unescorted, dependant on progress." On the subject of the proposed fence, Mr McDonald said a two-metre high barrier would not prevent patients absconding nor give staff or public confidence. But he said a very high fence could be said to infringe the patients' human rights.

"Similarly, a very high fence gives the wrong message to the public, i.e. that very dangerous patients are being accommodated at Gainsborough House, when this simply will not be the case," he says.

Dermot McGee, one of the leaders of the protest, said: "This spells out exactly what we had feared, and will stigmatise Abergele as being full of dangerous psychopaths."

Mr McGee lives next door to Gainsborough House and says that he and others living nearby will be unable to sell their properties.

Fellow protester Bob Under-hill said: "People who commit premeditated crimes such as robbery are locked up in secure prisons, but people with mental problems who commit them on the spur of the moment, and who are therefore more dangerous, are allowed more freedom. It just doesn't make sense."

About 2,000 leaflets are being distributed urging residents to attend the inquiry at the Kinmel Manor Hotel on November 20-21.